Yep, one of the most outspoken developers over crossplay and now that Sony is offering it, they're beating a hasty retreat and won't even try and implement it? Just proving the "fanboys" right that it was nothing more than a pathetic PR stunt.

Sony called their bluff, crossplay between several platforms costs much extra money for developers with actual less return (because no re-purchase of digital items).

So Mr Howard calls out Sony for not letting cross-play happen, then Sony decides to start letting it happen, and Bethesda's now basically going "Shit, we didn't think they'd actually do it!"? I mean, not doing it at launch makes sense but...you'd think they'd be a bit more gracious about it all now. Poor Todd, Jokes on you now.

and the tweet says it all... LOL! Someone is lying for sure.

https://imgur.com/a/qKYGgWo

Their games sell better on PS4 and it's owned by Sony. Maybe that's it? Maybe they want a safe comfortable home with Microsoft but can't resist the cash Sony gives them? Maybe it's individual people who have been wronged by one person or another within the gaming industry. But then why go out of their way to implement Skyrim on PSVR as well as Doom VFR. That much is very confusing.

And lets not forget that no one could stop them from adding Cross-play for xbox and PC...they didn't because they never intended to add cross play of any kind! Yet they happily participated in MS's smear campaign and got away with it.

You gotta love the hypocrisy and hate towards Sony.

It is things like this that make you realize that cross play never really mattered, it was just an excuse to jump on the hate train and try to make Sony look as bad as possible.

They've always had some weird issue with Sony, never really understood it. Kinda exposes them for their hypocrisy at least.

So in the words of a certain someone. . . Sony called their bluff??? xD

Those who shall not be named are noticeably absent in this article, I wonder why? 🤔

@Duke_Mason_MD

It goes both ways. . . Why aren't you and others that were clamoring for crossplay so docile about Bethesda backpedaling now? Shouldn't you be just as upset as you were when they pointed the finger at Sony?

Who cares Bethesda got smoked by CD Project Red they showed them how to do a proper open world third person game. The only good games Bethesda does these days are shooters and those are a dime a dozen. Bethesda does seem to have a bias towards MS I honestly don't care Sony has way more developers support there is a reason why so many Japanese games never see the day of light on the xbox.

@Duke_Mason_MD

"Please point to the comments where I was outraged? Please link the comments where I pointed the finger at Sony? "

I'll do so as soon as you link the comments of each and every individual here that said they didn't care before and are 'outraged' here. If you gonna generalize, I'll do so too thank you very much.

"First of all, this is stupid because Bethesda said they were looking into crossplay for '76 not that they would do it"

Okay?

Then why point the finger in the first place if they didn't even have concrete plans to implement it?
And even then that didn't stop people from blaming Sony as if Bethesda fully planned on doing it and that Sony were the ones blocking it from happening. Don't recall you calling those that did this 'stupid' at the time and that Bethesda were only looking into it.

"But as usual, you and others can't wait to blame everyone else for something you all kept telling everyone you didn't care about"

Just as usual you guys are quick to retract your outrage for something you did care about as soon Sony is no longer the center of blame? We can do this all day.

You nailed it, and they didn't expect PlayStation to implement console Crossplay so quickly. I hope this screws over Fallout 76 sales in some way, it definitely deserves it after all of this nonsense.

@ Duke_Mason_MD:

"It's okay, nobody cares about crossplay so why are you guys so upset that this game won't have it?"

People aren't upset about the game not supporting cross-play, that's not the point here. People are upset because of Bethesda's ridiculous behavior. Not long ago they were fully blaming Sony for the game not having cross-play, and now that Sony is allowing it they are backpedalling like crazy. That's why people are annoyed.

@Duke_Mason_MD

"Please point to the comments where I was outraged? Please link the comments where I pointed the finger at Sony?"

Just reread my initial comment, meant to say 'you guys' in order to reciprocate the generalization.

"Bethesda never stated they would implement crossplay for '76, they were only concerned with Elder Scrolls:Legends, is this so hard to understand or grasp or should we just start calling Bethesda hypocrites and blaming MS and pretending users have fake outrage"

They said they were looking into crossplay with 76 and blamed Sony. There was no point in doing that if they never planned on actually doing it in the first place which aided in the anti-consumer brigade at the time. People are simply calling that out as they should.

Can't blame Sony for blocking crossplay for 76 (which people did) at the time and then come here now and say 'erm They never said they were actually going to do it' otherwise why be upset and blame Sony at that time when there were no intentions for actual implementation of crossplay in the first place?

Point is, most if not everyone believed Sony were preventing 76 from having crossplay at least between console's at the time, based off of Bethesda words. Nobody was calming that 76's crossplay implementation was independent of Sony's stance on the issue, no one. Had Sony not changed their policy and Bethesda came out today to reconfirm that there was no crossplay. people would be blaming Sony for it even though Bethesda never claimed that they would actually implement it. So no, that card doesn't get to be used.

@UltraNova

"So much hypocrisy...whats Bethesda's and Todd's , in particular, beef with Sony anyway?"

I agree. They threatened Sony over Crossplay and now that Sony is willing to try it, they say that they don´t even have plans for their next MAINSTREAM game to have Crossplay? WTF?

It´s time to give Bethesda AND Microsoft some pressure! Bethesda regarding Crossplay on Fallout 76 and Microsoft regarding Gold Paywall on Free to Play games!

For those saying that he's being hypocritical, it's worth mentioning that at least at launch of the game, the cross play stuff probably won't be ready for other devs or publishers to submit their code for compliance testing, as the policies aren't available for actual release by the devs yet.

Of course, saying "maybe never" was unnecessary. It's either they had no intention of implementing and were blowing smoke, or they just aren't sure when or if it'll ever be made available to others. Given who's making the statement, it's really hard to determine what he may intend either way.

Anyhow, that all being said, I think people are overestimating just how many games will offer cross play going forward. Its not going to be ubiquitous any time soon, if ever. Some publishers don't really see the need for it, or see it as a hindrance to sales, or requiring more technical support than what is done now. There are some devs who want it, but most really don't care, and the publishers care even less in the grand scheme of things.

Bethesda is eating crow they look like hypocrites they had no intention of adding cross play but had no beef calling out Sony on their stance so they should get criticized for taking sides specially since it was never in their plans.

Gardenia

Do you have a article where he said that?

solideagle

The articles you posted are about The Elder Scrolls Legends which is a cross platform card game between all platforms including Android/Apple ect, nothing in that article says Bethesda threatened to ditch the PS4, only that particular game which isn't surprising given the Fortnite controversy which was a month or two old at that point.

@ Jinger: again, why does he say that he has 'no idea if it ever will' have cross-play? If it's so important to him, I would have expected a different response.

@Jinger:

Legit question - Is there cross play between Xbox/PC for Fallout 76? If the answer is "no", then I don't think their decision to not focus on it would have been due to Sony's position. If the answer is "yes", then I can see your point.

@ Duke_Mason_MD:

"You cannot do cross-play in 76,” Howard said, according to GameStar.de (via CNET). “We’d really love that but right now we can’t. Sony is not as helpful as everyone would like.” - https://www.polygon.com/201...

Wow, a practical thought & of course that can't be tolerated on N4G.

Not that I'm mad in this case & the pressure certainly helps, I want to see Bethesda enable crossplay for 76 so I can play with my mates who play Xbox but I'm also pragmatic and understand that such a change isn't possible this close to launching a new AAA game, not without stalling the release, pissing off shareholders, and other financial burdens.

If anyone on N4G has ever read between the lines in their life, they'd be aware that it was never planned for 76, just a personal desire from Hines.

@Jinger

What help would Sony have to provide to make it possible for Bethesda to implement it?

I mean, for two years now, I've been hearing people say how easy it is to implement. The Rocket League guy said he had a implementation. Epic games proved it could work. All that was lacking was a set of compliance standards to actually do it and have it run on the system.

I know at this point that it's in beta, so they still don't have permission and can't just turn it on. But at the same time, given that he said Sony was the reason it wasn't happening, it now looks more like that was just an excuse, and that he doesn't really care about it as much as he made it seem. Any developer that can make an online game of the scale of FO76, can make it work fairly easily. It was never about it being easy or hard, it was if it would be allowed.

Bethesda decided to call out Sony to try and make them look bad, but this current quote indicates that they really don't care about the feature all that much. They have no reason to, and likely never will.

Going forward, many publishers and devs aren't going to implement it. probably the majority of MP games actually.

@ultra

Fortnite was already prepped and ready to go for crossplay unlike Fallout 76. It was a feature they wanted to explore but kept getting shut down by Sony so I'm sure they put it on the back burner for now.

@ Jinger: that makes no sense. If cross-play was so important, why can't they be bothered to enable it now that Sony has allowed it?

@kados

@jinger

It's crazy, even after Todd gets flat out exposed "does not support crossplay-probably never will" you guys still spin and blame sony...

You are the definition of shills.

Jinger,

Thats apologetic bull**** at best and you know it.

Look I'm no expert in cross-platform net code connectivity but I can safely say that its hell of alot easier to implement cross play than to develop or do late game code changes, so no matter what you or any Bethesda apologist says the truth is Bethesda never planned(wanted?) for Cross-play because if they did they would of enabled it for xbox and PC. They simply jumped on the opportunity to smear Sony, that's the cold hard - unspinable truth.

@remixx116:

Oh man, the irony. I guess it is as the saying goes, "those who do not know, do not know they do not know"

The mental deficiency of Sony fanboys has reached such an extreme, they actually believe anyone who is not a Sony fanboy, must be a shill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... I do not work for Bethesda, hence not a shill by definition. You might want to atleast learn the meaning of a word, before using it to insult someone. You only make yourself look bad to anyone with a brain. Fortunately for you, not many people on N4G have a brain.

Oh and for the record, i do not even support Fallout 76. I think the entire idea is crap and have no intention of ever purchasing it.

@ Kados: maybe you shouldn't start calling everyone a fanboy when it's clearly Bethesda was bluffing and now their tone is suddenly very different from before Sony adjusted their policy.

@Kados

You've just exposed your extreme bias regardless.

@CarlDechance:

There is a big difference between bias, and a simple disdain for stupidity. Faboys and people who ignore facts to suit their own agenda, annoy me.

I am not bias against anything. I own and enjoy nearly every console made from the Atari 2600 on, PS4 Pro, X1X, Switch, and a $2500 self built PC included.

So how did Sony stop crossplay between the PC and Xbox One?

They couldn't have. Which means the blame falls on Bethesda.

@kados:

Not really. If they were planning on implementing cross play to begin with, it would have already been enabled between PC/Xbox. Sony would have had zero control or say over cross play between those two platforms, and Sony's position on cross play hasn't impacted its implementation between console/PC in other games.

Jinger

"It was a feature they wanted to explore but kept getting shut down by Sony so I'm sure they put it on the back burner for now."

This sounds familiar. . .

Didn't you guys say that excuse didn't fly when people brought up that Sony wanted to explore crossplay with consoles last gen, but MS gave their response and in turn this gen Sony played hardball or to use your term 'put in on the back burner for now'?

Why is this excuse suddenly valid? 🤔

@Duke_Mason_MD

"Didn't you guys say crossplay isn't a big deal, that Sony shouldn't do it, that no one will use it, no one cares? Didn't you guys say this?"

I personally never said that apart from maybe that it isn't a big deal, but this isn't about crossplay. It's about putting the blame on Sony when they never had any concrete plans on actually doing it.

Crossplay actually happening isn't the problem it's the whole going from "sony isn't helping" to "we're not doing it anytime soon" that's the issue

"Sony never wanted to crossplay with MS last gen. Please leave a link to an article where Sony wanted to explore crossplay with MS last gen"

Developers at the time were blaming MS

@kados

There is a dumb amount of hypocrisy in your comment but lemme keep it simple starting with the saying you quoted "those who do not know do not know they do not know"

You state your original comment as fact-"the fact is the game is much closer to release now than it was when they originally asked Sony for crossplay"

How do you even know they ever asked don't when they IN FACT just stated that it wasnt really planned from the jump, "gasp" could it be that you..."do not know". And nothing in my comment implied I'm a fanboy so please don't assume such as all I did was point out how Todd himself was caught in his own falacy and yet you still claim -no this is obviously what happened though I am not being entirely obbjective but I'll claim it as such-

Lol bro don't wiki link me to death the point is you came off as a shill and now your flinging the fanboy word around like there wasn't a more clever rhetoric.

Judging by your inability to look at the situation, (hell it's fairly easy http://n4g.com/news/2183553... ( http://n4g.com/news/2206276... you are the one with the mental deficiency.

So, he was all about cross play, and it may cause problems for Sony getting games if they don't offer it.

But now, that they are beta testing it, it's that its not planned.

So, instead of just saying that it won't be available for launch, but they are interested and will look into it when its made available, all in a non-commital way like these things usually are...he instead contradicts his earlier statement that the problem is that Sony isn't being helpful.

That's why the fanboy damage control wagon is crying foul. Because Hines made it all about Sony not too long ago. Now, its a "number" of vague and unspecified reasons.

So, which is it.....Sony, or a bunch of reasons....or both?

This despite the fact that Epic could flip a switch and a small dev made their own implementation in Rocket League. Can't imagine what reasons would prevent Bethesda from doing it.

@Jinger

Sure, they can connect the players pretty easily, but how do you connect the social networks and the way they work?

For two years I've been hearing about how easy it is to actually connect the players in the matchmaking itself.....something that I actually agreed with, because it is. But there is more to it than that.

But what Hines is saying here is that it isn't even up for consideration, despite his prior comment seeming like he was all for it. I could understand if he said that it won't be available on launch for the reason of it wasn't available yet so they didn't bother, but he didn't make any such indication here, which is atypical for PR, where they're usually vaguely promising that they're interested, even if they're not.